Mehr als die Hälfte der Korallenriffe der Welt wurden zwischen 2014 und 2017 gebleicht – eine rekordverdächtige Episode, die nun von einer weiteren Serie verheerender Hitzewellen in den Schatten gestellt wird. Riffe erleben derzeit ein noch schwerwiegenderes viertes Ereignis, das Anfang 2023 begann
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260210-three-year-heatwave-bleached-half-the-planet-s-coral-reefs-study
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The analysis concluded that 51 percent of the world’s reefs endured moderate or worse bleaching while 15 percent experienced significant mortality over the three-year period known as the „Third Global Bleaching Event“.
It was „by far the most severe and widespread coral bleaching event on record“, said Sean Connolly, one the study’s authors and a senior scientist at the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
„And yet, reefs are currently experiencing an even more severe Fourth Event, which started in early 2023,“ Connolly said in a statement.
When the sea overheats, corals eject the microscopic algae that provides their distinct colour and food source.
Unless ocean temperatures return to more tolerable levels, bleached corals are unable to recover and eventually die of starvation.
„Our findings demonstrate that the impacts of ocean warming on coral reefs are accelerating, with the near certainty that ongoing warming will cause large-scale, possibly irreversible, degradation of these essential ecosystems,“ said the study in the journal Nature Communications.
An international team of scientists analysed data from more than 15,000 in-water and aerial surveys of reefs around the world over the 2014-2017 period.
They combined the data with satellite-based heat stress measurements and used statistical models to estimate how much bleaching occurred around the world.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-67506-w
We started snorkeling three years ago. We now basically travel the world to see more and more of its largest graveyard.
This is the stuff that always blows my mind when people say that global warming isn’t happening. You can argue the level of impact humans have on it if you really want, but this sort of evidence is inescapable. It doesn’t matter if we caused it, it’s happening. What are we doing to do about it? The science is pretty clear on what the drivers are, we can manipulate the levers.